Back when Salman Rushdie had a Padma Lakshmi to go home to and a fatwa hanging over his smooshed-up genius head, he wasn't out very often. But now since Padma's fled and Islamic fundamentalism is on the wane, he is, as The Observer's Doree Shafrir notes, omnipresent. Since October he's attended, spoken at, or slept through no less than 11 events in wildly different locales. And at some of these, he's been accompanied by toothsome lasses, including one toothsome lass named Patrice Jorden who "resembles nothing less than a younger, African-American version of Ms. Lakshmi." Hey, we all have a 'type'!

Or maybe Salman doesn't. He has also recently been armcandied by Kay Saatchi, who it might be said resembles nothing less than a blonde, heavyset, English, old and white Padma Lakshmi. Also, Padma might be dating "billionaire Ted Forstmann" but whatever. While Mr. Forstmann has been making love to Padma Lakshmi on a pile of gold-plated diamond-crusted 100 dollar bills,"on Oct. 7 [Rushdie] whooshed up to Ontario to give a lecture 'in the provocative spirit of Bernard Shaw,'" and on October 18th he was in Ithaca. So we all know who the real winner is.

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